The Creative Spirit. The First Element.

I have just completed a round of interviews for next year's course.

What was remarkable was the lack of work people bring to me on the day. A few pieces of paper, a couple of ad concepts, a script, a few photographs;  the offerings on the interview table are usually thin.

There are many young people who say they are creative, yet they are unable to be productive. 

They are not willing to put down idea after idea after idea after idea until their brain hurts.  

What I am talking about here is a lack of energy.

Energy is one of the four elements of an individual's Creative Spirit. (I'll write about the other three elements another time.)

Without sufficient mental energy, your creative pursuits suffer from flaws, caused by faulty logic. 

Without sufficient physical energy, your creative ideas don’t get put into motion, they remain in the closet to gather dust. 

All creativity begins as pure energy because the ideas that compose your creative thinking are nothing more than electrical impulses in your brain. 

Without energy, creativity is impossible.

The term energy also relates to the degree of passion you bring to everything you do.  

When you are fascinated by a project, or personally invested in a subject or task, you feel charged and exuberant.
 
You are able to summon up as much energy as it takes to create dozens, scores, even hundreds of ideas to one brief. The energy you invest is repaid by results and positive feedback. 

The more you love something, the more energy you will have to dedicate to it. 

And so the more creative you will be. 



When you are not energetic, the whole process may seem like a struggle, and your creativity will take a dive.

Energy is the force that drives you to write 6 campaigns when the the creative director asks for one.

Energy is what keeps you up all night writing great ideas that get bought the next morning, while the charlatans are in the pub.

Energy is what gets you to the top and keeps you there. 

The Beatles played 3 gigs a day, 7 days a week honing their skills.

Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy made nearly 200 films as individuals before they made a film together. 

Stephen King's first published novel was the 17th book he'd written.

You may be the most interesting and talented  person around. 

You might get a job in advertising.

You might even write one or two decent ads.

However, if you won't make your mark on the business you need energy.




Addendum for wanna-be creatives.

Get off the lap top. 
Stop clicking on images and Youtube videos. 
Put your Facebook life on hold for a while.

Get loads of paper and a pen. Now, think of the brand problem as your coal face and get digging.

You dig away at a brand. 
Work to simple emotional truths.
Questions, insights and hunches are your tools of choice.
What's the brand's problem?
You produce a mound of paper rubble trying to find an answer. 
You look at it. 
Are there any nuggets in there?
No? 
Keep digging. 
Dig in a different place. 
Dig with a different tool. 
Get someone alongside to help you dig.
In no time at all you have 20 ideas. 
If you think one of them is good, develop it. 
If none of them are good, read The Sun, have a strong coffee, eat a biscuit and get back to work.
Advertising is a working class pursuit which means you have to work.

An interviewee arriving with some ideas at the next round of interviews.

ADVERTISING NEEDS FIGHTERS

Recently, I spoke at our graduation event. The graduates of 2014 and those from 2015 were there to receive their diplomas. 

These graduates are all in the business so I thought I would tell them what they are now up against. 

Part of the speech was published by Campaign magazine. 
Here is the full version. 

You are in the business.

You made it.

Congratulations.

Now let me tell you something.

Advertising is rubbish.

It’s broken.

Busted.

Kaput.

There are no stand-out agencies.

No stand-out campaigns. 

No hot shops. No creative boutiques.

There’s no creative jealousy.

The words, I wish I’d done that, are rarely uttered by writers and art directors these days.

There was a time when the ads were better than the programmes. 
When the cinema ads entertained and when creatives fought for the poster briefs. And the radio ads did cool things to your ears.

This is great news.

You have come in to an industry that, creatively speaking, is on its knees.

What a great opportunity you have.

You are in a fantastic position.

Because the only way to go is up.

Standard wise, we can’t go down any further, in my view.

So what do you do?

The answer is simple.

You fight.

You fight.

You fight for more time.

Clients want to see ideas too soon. It might be good for the agency client relationship, but it's not good for creativity. 

It is proven that the most talented creative professionals play with ideas for longer. 

They are prepared to suffer the anxiety you feel when you haven't cracked a problem in an original way.

Creatives get tense and anxious after they have brainstormed ideas. So, to release the tension you feel you have to make a decision. 

They decide to present, or they are asked to present, their ideas  too soon and run with them. 

The creatives who want original ideas do not make a quick decision. They are happy to live with this tension and dissonance for longer periods. 
And in doing so come up with ideas that are more original.

Fight for the right to wallow in the anxiety you need to create great work.

Fight for more time.

Fight for simplicity.

You need to take on the introverted risk averse clients who are using advertising for the sole purpose to further their own careers by introducing confusion and complexities just so that they are seen to solve the confusion and complexities they themselves introduced.

Fight for the 6 word brief.

Fight against the big words. And the verbose intellectuals.

When I worked at Lowe Lintas there was a Head of Planning who was a big hairy man who had a wizard’s beard. 

He wore linen tops that had embroidered sleeves. 

He had books on his shelf about from Eastern philosophers. 
(The creatives had Viz, The Beano and Spike Milligan.)

He walked around bare foot. The clients thought he was the guru of all things advertising. He would stroke his beard and utter  stuff like, 

...'the purpose of the brand journey is to maximise the transportative emotion to register the consumer consciousness with a brand mnemonic'. 

What he was trying to say was, write a memorable ad.

Advertising is your mum your best mate and your brother and the little old lady next door.

Fight for simplicity.

Fight for fun. 

Fight for humour.  

Fight for the right to entertain.

Take on those who stand by the water cooler, waxing lyrical over The Book of Mormon, Three Lions and Alan Partridge and then return to their desks and are scared shitless at the thought of presenting your funny script.

Fight the client who lost his humour with each sprout of his pubic hair and  who last laughed when he saw the dinner lady slip over a spilled bowel of rice pudding in the dinner hall at Eton.

Fight for fun.

Fight for your own space.

Fight for more walls. Walls are not barriers.  They are quite the opposite.  Walls are creative canvasses where your collection of madcap images, quotes, illustrations and photos talk to you in wondrous tones and with magical voices. 

Walls are an organic, ever changing tapestry of your  own unique creative culture,  a tangible inspiring display of the creative you, which confirms that you are not working in a bank or telesales centre but in the nourishing womb of a creative advertising agency that respects the notion that the creative mind needs a creatively stimulating environment.

Fight for your own space.

Fight against the nodding brigade.

The industry is far too polite. 

If we all nod and agree and we look for approval we get agreeable, polite advertising that gets approved.

Shake your head occasionally.

No that doesn’t make sense.

No we can’t show that.

No we can’t run that.

No, I disagree because.

No, we need more time.

No, that is not good enough.

No, this brand deserves better thinking…a clearer brief..

No, we need more time.

My father had a Triumph Herald.

On the back shelf he had a nodding dog.

It used to bounce its head up and down and it had a big smile on its face. The thing I noticed was this: the dog nodded when the car was going fast. 
It nodded when the car went slow. It nodded when the car went forwards and when the car went in to reverse. It nodded up hills and it nodded going down hills.

It nodded in sunny weather and in bad.

It was as if the dog was continually giving him approval on his driving.

And when my father drove into the back of another car which he shunted into another car which in turn hit another car, causing a 4 car pile-up, guess what? The dog was still nodding.

Still giving its approval.

The industry is far too polite.

And my guess is that a lot of great ideas are crashing.

Fight against the nodding brigade.

Fight for learning.

Surround yourself with mentors, muses and magicians.

Every agency should have a creative mentor.  Learn from them. And if you don’t have that special one in your agency, you are in the wrong agency and you should leave and join an agency that does have a special one.

Fight for your agency to send you on courses.

Go to pottery classes and throw ads.

Go to  knitting  classes and knit ideas.

Go to clown school  and create childlike, clownish ideas.

Keep learning.

One day you might want a second career.

So, the answer is simple.

You fight.

Fight smart.

Fight with your logic,

Fight with your smiles,

Fight with your humour,

Fight with carefully chosen powerful words and with your every inch of your self-belief.

Fight with your passion. Fight with your heart.

Fight with common sense.

Fight with reasoned argument.

Fight the battles you know you can win and fight the battles you think you can win.

And sometimes fight the battles you don’t think you can win.

You might win them.

Above all, fight with your talent.

And, if you keep fighting, every great piece of work you make will be hugely rewarding, because you fought for it.

And if you lose your jobs in trying to make the industry creatively better, then frankly the business doesn’t deserve you.

The future of advertising is in your hands.

Advertising is busted.

It’s now your responsibility to fix it.

It is worth fighting for.

I know how good you all are.

And how much better you want to be.

You can do it.

Good luck.

The Digital Beard.

Technology has created some mind-blowing ideas of late. 

One rather disturbing development I have come across recently is the Digital Beard. The use of male facial hair as a digital storage device.

Klaus Von Strutenberg a digital pioneer in California has successfully transferred data from optical fibres to the strands of  human hair. 

Strutenberg's research found that men's beard hair and optical fibres  have a very similar molecular structure and they behave in very similar ways.

In 2012, Strutenberg successfully uploaded a Mariah Carey music video to a single bristle.

Tom Yoravinmeon, a volunteer, had his films, playlists, photos and personal information uploaded to his beard via an adapted bristle
port and cable. 

Strutenberg said, "I know this sounds implausible, but I see the day when Netflix will be able to stream direct to Bluetooth beards. 
All personal ID, like passports, CV's and bank details will be stored on a hairy chin. Facebook will actually be on the human face."

The trials have not been without controversy.

Female scientists and groups like WAB, Women Against Beards, have attempted to disrupt Strutenberg's trials on the basis of inequality.

A group of female lawyers, backed by Gillette, have filed a petition  to stop the trials on the grounds of sexism. Women, or most women, are unable to grow beards.

In response, the research team have tried to digitalise a woman's hair with disastrous results.

Strutenberg found the electrical negatively charged  impulses from the brain interfered with the positively charged digital information. 

One female volunteer's head caught fire when Spotify, (a major sponsor of the trials), tried to upload the complete discography of Dolly Parton to her ponytail.

Another volunteer's ears melted when the researchers tried to upload Kim Kardashian's Twitter page to her lustrous bob.

An extreme female activist group called  Bye Bye Beard, ( The BBB),  have been attacking men in San Diego bars with shaving foam.

Unperturbed, Strutenberg's team are continuing with their trials and they expect the Digital Beard to be launched in 2018. 

During the research trials there was one notable discovery. 

Any advertising or branded content was automatically rejected by beards. 

The advertising content remained on the hair follicles to be removed later with a fine beard comb. 

It appears that beards are natural adblockers.

Here is a quick film that was smuggled out of Strutenberg's Labs.

The passing of time never defeats a good idea.

In 1994, two students Zane Radcliffe and Graham Davey knocked on my door.

"We got an idea Tone. Can we borrow the whiteboard stand?", they said.

"Use it well. Bring it back", I replied.

Off they trundled with the portable whiteboard and a few marker pens.

Later that same week the boys pinned up an idea for Hornby model train sets at our Friday Review. 

The campaign showed how they put the whiteboard to good use. This is what they did.

The idea showed many skills.

It showed the team could write witty headlines.

It showed how they could steal up on an audience and grab their attention.

It showed they could write ads that didn't look like ads.

It showed they could think in a topical way. Back then railway concourses then were awash with excuses for delayed and cancelled trains. 

It showed they had smart media thinking.

And it showed they had conviction in their ideas and a bit of mischief.

Not many first term ideas at Watford make it to June.


The Hornby campaign did.

I loved the idea. So much so, that a few years ago I found the work in the plans chest.  

I laminated it and displayed it in my rooms.

After Watford, Zane and Graham split. Zane formed a partnership with Mike Oughton and landed a job at Leo Burnett. 

The Hornby campaign was one of many great ideas in their folio.

Zane won tons of awards in his 15 years in advertising.  

He left London and started his own agency in Scotland called Newhaven. 

He then left for Northern Ireland and became a best selling author. (London Irish and A Killer's Guide To Iceland were two of his bestsellers.)

In 2015, Zane  came back to advertising and is now the Creative Director of AgencyUK in Bath.

Zane wanted to inspire the younger creatives in his department to come up with simple, fresh ideas.

So he went back into his own plans chest and dug out the Hornby campaign he wrote with Graham when he was a young creative at Watford.
  
Zane also showed it to the Hornby client.  The client loved it and bought the idea.

The idea took 21 years to go from the Watford pin boards to the real world.

Zane entered the work for The Drum Awards 2015. 

It won the top prize, The Grand Prix.

It also won the prize for headline writing.

Good ideas will  always be good. 

Hang  on to them.

You never know when their time will come.

On your bike.

When I was a wannabe creative I found a job by cycling around the offices of Leicester knocking on doors. 

That's what the Tory Government of the time told us to do. 

'Want a job? Get on your bike', they said.

I managed to get a job 3.5 miles from where I lived. 

I worked out that 3.5 miles was the maximum distance that my front bicycle tyre would manage.

You see, it had a slow puncture and I couldn't afford a new inner tube. 

I stuck a new Elastoplast on the inner tube every morning. 

I pumped it up and it got me to work. 

And every evening I stuck another Elastoplast onto the tube and managed to cycle home. 

That's why my first job in advertising was at a local advertising agency called Gaytons. 

3.5 miles away from home.

The Creative Director didn't have a bike. 

He had a sports car and a pretty secretary. 

He also had a hyphen.  

I'd never met anyone with a hyphen before. 

I was really impressed with hyphens. 

Back then it meant you were posh and rich and you came from a good school.

The Creative Director was called Nigel Parry-Williams. 

And when 'the hyphen' spoke I listened.

He told me that if I wanted to make it in advertising I would have to go to London.

I told him that if I worked in London I would need 60 Elastoplasts a day.  

30 to get me there and 30 to get me back.

He gave me money for a train ticket.

Nowadays, young folk can afford inner tubes.  

They can fill their house with inner tubes if they like. 

So, they can work further than 3.5 miles from where they live.

It's not surprising that an increasing amount of my ex-students are now working a long way from home.

Here are some ex-Watford students who now work in The U.S.

Some of them have bikes.

None of them have hyphens.

                            Sherry Malik Ogilvy New York

Adam Arber, ex-Watford and now Creative Director. His Joe Boxer campaign for FCB Chicago, below.

Michael Micetich class of 2012 and now working as a writer at 22 Squared in Atlanta.

Simon Horton, ex-Watford, and now freelance writer/art director in New York. Simon is Brooklyn's very own Catman.

                                 Simon's view from his office. 
                      Below, Catman strikes.

There are stray cats behind every apartment I lived in. I fed them but wanted to do more, so sold this idea to my local cat charity:

The idea is that lucky cats have brought good fortune to people for centuries, so its time cats had some good fortune themselves - particularly those at the Brooklyn Animal Action. We made 40+ ceramic lucky cat donation boxes and put them in stores across Brooklyn. 

Each ceramic cat was hand glazed to resemble a cat in need of adoption, we also added the cats name to the collar.

It's a tiny project but it's providing the charity with a steady income and helping with adoptions. Simon.

Ex-Watford team, Thom Glover and Eoin McClaughlin with the account handlers at Droga 5 New York.

Ex-Watford, Jeeves works at Wieden & Kennedy, New York. Below, one of his silly films for Gap plus a recent print ad he did that unsettled a few people

          Helen Rhodes, ex-Watford and now an art director at Wieden & Kennedy, Portland with a selfie which is a photo of a drawing of a photo.
 

Sam Oliver, class of 1999 and now the Creative Director of     Apple, Palo Alto California. Sam sent me a pic of Eric, his faithful gnome. Eric is not a digital gnome. He is just a gnome.

Paddy Fraser, Watford Student Of The Year 2008 and now Creative Director at Crispin Porter, Los Angeles.

Jana Pejkovska, ex-Watford and now a senior art director at  Publicis New York .

Gavin Lester Creative Director, Deutsch Los Angeles.

Antony Goldstein Creative Director WK Portland, Oregon.

James Cooper Creative Director Betaworks New York.

Technology is a wonderful thing.

...you levitate above your Hoversofa which X-rays your back and sends the results via Instagram to your doctor who is in a hammock in the Maldives where he re-calibrates your fridge to add 3 mg of radium to your water supply to destroy the benign tumor he's just found in your kidney and he also re-codes your Throbcushions to boost the ultra-sound waves to massage your aching limbs which makes you feel so warm and fuzzy you tune your fibre optic hair transplant and stream a 7D holographic concert comprising Mahatma Ghandi on guitar Adolf Hitler on drums John Wayne on keyboards Marilyn Monroe on bass and Stalin as backing singer whilst your Leap Forward Motion Headset detects a heightened level of mosh pit desire in your neocortex and hurls you on stage in your Teletubby onesie to join your personally constructed band so you can Twerk excitedly to Adolf's jazz inflected drum solos until your Jawbone beeps that your increased body temperature has risen above the acceptable levels of Tinky Winky and triggers your all-weather smart ceiling to precipitate a gentle flurry of personalised lime-green and cerulean tainted snowflakes which cool you down whereupon one Bluetooth snowflake reads your Facebook page and classifies you as  a potential skier and via your Ocular Rift Portal you are immediately whisked away from your Twerking to the top of a gentle blue run in Augmented Reality St Moritz wearing skis made out of potato peelings which your 3D printer has produced by the interface with the recycling bin and you take a gentle inhalation of cold alpine air from a phial in your headset as The Eye Tribe function in your ski goggles propels you forward to traverse the fluffy white powder and you ski so beautifully and gracefully you instantly fall in love with the sport and you purchase a ski chalet with your HSBC Saliva Recognition debit card  from the hologram time-share saleswoman at the bottom of the ski slope who has an uncanny resemblance to your favourite actress Sandra Bullock and after signing the mortgage contract Sandra scans the trace of saliva on your card and recognises that after a virtual ski you are extremely ravenous so she  texts the nearest Jamie Oliverbot patrolling your neighbourhood which glides up to your electrified front door electrified because the paving stones in your street have sensed a rather furtive walk from an unidentified individual with a dodgy beard so as a
precaution your local vigilante officer has switched your front door to taser mode and has granted the Jamie Oliverbot access to post your favourite pizza with Ecuadorian anchovies and
Nepalese mushrooms through your wi-fi letterbox which alerts your Domestic a 6 inch plastic model of Tony Blair with propellers who picks up your evening meal and via the Royal Doulton GPS which is disguised as a malnourished Chinese peasant on your mock willow pattern plate and delivers it to your lap and shortly after your final gulp your Bowel App says that the pizza will be through your gut in 228 minutes and 16.7 seconds and alerts your toilet to the exact time of fecal deposit so it can self-fragrance with Aux De Ski Instructor just in case you forget to pay your next instalment on the ski chalet you now own and yawning heavily you make your way to your amniotic pod knowing that every thought you had during the day will be written in to proper sentences by the Literati algorithm in your Microsoft pillow...

Technology is a wonderful thing.
But it's not as wonderful as a clear campaign strategy for a brand.

Watford alumni dominate Christmas campaigns..

The naughty creative elves, who once worked in the grotto of the Watford Ad School, have been busy making media mischief. 
Happy Christmas to you all. TC.

              Written by Steph Ellis (with Rory Hall) class of 2010.

    Written by Laurent Simon and Aidan McClure. Class of 2003.

Written by Milo Carter and Sophie Knox class of 2009 and 2010.

Written by Colin Smith and Angus Vine, and creative directed by Jim Bolton. All Watford.

                    Written by Nic Wood and Andy Forrest Class of 2003

                 Written and directed by Tim McNaughton class of 1999.

Creative directed by Adam Scholes class of a helluva long time ago in the days when I had a full set of teeth and my hair was 9.6 on the cumulus cloud scale.

Written by Sam Bishop and Mike Eichler class of 2009.

 https://www.kfc.co.uk/friendshipbuckettest#

Written by Dan Delhavi and Drew Haselhurst class of 2013.

Written by Anna Carpen class of 2010.

And one Christmas ad that isn't Christmassy by Gareth and Martin class of 2013